When Jesus said, “I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see” (Revelation 3:18). What could He have possibly meant by this? In some ways the answer to what He meant is in the verse before this which says, “Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked.”

The above verses remind you a lot of some of these so-called prophets that are out there these days; their whole manner in the way that they present themselves is that they are great men of God, they actually appear to believe that they are somehow or other spiritually rich and increased with goods and they as good as boast that they have some high-up relationship with Jesus Himself and some high-up relationship with God Himself. They also give the definite impression that they are walking amongst the gods so to speak, that they are walking amongst higher circles of people such as Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Enoch and Elijah and that they access the spiritual realm like you might access a light switch when you enter into a dark room; they appear as doing this at random and it has become as second nature to these people! They spell all this out to their audience as if they are parading around in all of this and a lot of people are sat in these audiences as sincere people who are eagerly seeking the truth and eagerly seeking some form of spirituality in their lives, they so desperately want to find Jesus, they so desperately want to see a miracle that might prove to themselves that such a thing as spirituality and persons like Jesus and God are so very very real and so they listen to these people with eager ears, eager eyes, eager hearts, and eager spirits, they do their best to seek and pursue everything that these people say as if by some faint glimmer of hope they might stumble upon the truth but sad to say, a lot of these people are coming away from these would-be prophets (although some are not), with a sick feeling in their hearts and in their spirits and a lot of these people find themselves feeling like Jesus did when He spoke of such would-be leaders. He said of such people,

“I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of my mouth” (Revelation 3:16).

So rather than come away from such people with a full heart and a full spirit, people might find themselves coming away with a sick feeling in their heart and a sick feeling in their spiritual stomachs, so much so that they wish to never return and they might find themselves feeling desperately ill after the whole experience, so ill that they might feel that they have caught some kind of rare disease which leaves them feeling full of anxiety and fear and a disturbed feeling in their minds that all is not well in the religious scene. They might even feel like they have drunk some kind of spiritual poison or swallowed something that is not good for them and so they might find themselves sick for many days afterwards, wondering if there is any real truth out there or any real hope for them, that maybe all of this religious stuff is as they say, something that you might catch and that you should avoid it like the plague!

You have to say that when you see these would-be prophets parading around that it does remind you of the old story of the Emperor’s New Clothes. Everyone remembers the story no-doubt and as I recall, the emperor was apparently wearing magic clothes that were made with magic cloth and they were so splendid and so refined and so wonderful that anyone who couldn’t see these clothes was some kind of a fool. And that’s just it! These prophets tell you time and again and again and again that they are having all these visions, that they are having all these dreams, that they are accessing the spiritual realm, that they are constantly talking to Jesus like you might talk to your husband or wife, that they are having visions of Abraham, Isaac, and every saint going, every angel going, including Gabriel and no-doubt Michael the Archangel too! In all of this they parade around just like the emperor paraded around in his magic clothes, they throw their bread or their crumbs, whatever you might want to call it, out to the hungry audience, they talk as if they are giving them spiritual pearls, as if their words are all gold and precious – the fact of the matter is that there is no gold here at all – only fools gold!

Jesus talked of “gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich” – What He meant by this is that His own words, the words of the Lord are as gold tried in the fire seven times, this meaning also that gold is made purer when you burn away all of the rubbish. They heat gold up in the fire and burn any rubbish out of it, you do this seven times and the gold comes out pure. The actual words that come out of Jesus’ mouth are pure gold, the words that are coming out of these false prophets mouths are not coming from Jesus, they are coming from their own minds and imaginations and it’s all false, just like the clothes that the emperor was apparently wearing! Jesus said that we should be clothed in white raiment and that the shame of our nakedness do not appear, this means that we should be clothed in righteousness that can only come from Jesus, that we should be clothed in true salvation that can only come from Jesus! He also said “…and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see” The word anoint here means: to look at things through true spiritual eyes or in other words, through God’s eyes, that we should see things as God sees them in a spiritual sense of the word and not in a fleshly carnal way as we would like to see them. All of this fleshly way of looking at things is blinding people’s eyes to the truth – Jesus can wash all of this away with His Spirit! Jesus once washed a blind man’s eyes with His own saliva and this blind man could then see!